'Producers' select-ticket sales delayed

Entertainment Briefs

Posted: Saturday, November 03, 2001

NEW YORK (AP) - In show business, timing is everything.

The week after an announcement by "The Producers" that selected choice seats for the hit musical would be made available for $480, the show's star, Nathan Lane, has missed every performance since Tuesday.

The culprit: a polyp on his left vocal cord that has required complete vocal rest. Lane has been plagued by vocal problems since the musical opened on Broadway in April. Since then, he has missed more than dozen performances. Lane was expected to return to the musical Sunday.

No on-sale date has been announced for the record-setting $480 tickets, but the producers of "The Producers" are in the process of setting up a company to deal with the sale and marketing of the premium tickets. The current top ticket price for the musical is $100.

"The Producers" isn't the only Broadway show missing its leading man. "Thou Shalt Not," the Susan Stroman-Harry Connick Jr. musical, has been without the services of star Craig Bierko since opening night Oct. 25.

NEW YORK (AP) - ABC had to hurriedly cut a Michael Jackson performance out of a concert special that aired Thursday night at the singer's request, a spokesman said.

Jackson asked for his performance to be cut from the "United We Stand" concert special because Jackson's own concert special is planned later this month on CBS.

Jackson appeared as one of several performers in an all-star finale at the end of the show.

SEATTLE (AP) - The cultural impact of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks remains unclear, but the attacks may teach Americans to want more of the truth, says playwright Edward Albee.

Albee, 73, author of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Three Tall Women," said the nation's reaction is unsettled.

"I don't think people have really figured out how they feel yet. It's too early to have a coherent response to what happened, and it's too early for creative people to know how it's going to affect their work."

Albee, who was in town to appear in a lecture series Tuesday evening, told The Seattle Times that he considers "all my plays political, at least indirectly," and believes honesty is at the heart of great art.